


Find Me

by ariel2me



Series: Stannis/Melisandre [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28491570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: He wasnotlost, he protested, to a nameless accuser. He wasnotcrying out for help, he insisted, to the absent figure he was reaching out for in the nightfire. He was merely holding on to her faith, her faith in him that was stronger than his faith in himself.(Stannis/Melisandre, miles from where you are.)
Relationships: Melisandre of Asshai/Stannis Baratheon
Series: Stannis/Melisandre [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1427794
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	Find Me

_[F]rom time to time His Grace was glimpsed upon the tower roof, outlined against the beacon fire that burned there night and day. Talking to the red god, some said. Calling out for Lady Melisandre, insisted others. Either way, it seemed to Asha Greyjoy, the king was lost and crying out for help. (A Dance with Dragons)_

_The king stood outside his tent, staring into the nightfire. What does he see there? Victory? Doom? The face of his red and hungry god? (A Dance with Dragons)_

**___________________**

It was her absent face he saw in the nightfire, her heart-shaped face with the sardonic smile that was reserved for him and him alone. In the presence of others, she was ever in earnest, as solemn and grave as … well, the grave.

She had laughed, when he made that uncharacteristic remark about the grave. “I never took you for a man of japes and jests, my king,” she said, amused. He had scowled at that. He was most certainly _not_ a man of japes and jests, he protested. He disapproved of such frivolities, he insisted.

His fervent insistence seemed to amuse her further. “You are above such frivolities, you mean? Or you believe that such frivolities are beyond your talent? Which is it, my king? Could it be both? Does one derive from the other?” 

This was a talent _she_ possessed: needling him and interrogating his motives down to the bone, forcing him to come face to face with himself, when he would rather swallow broken glass than doing anything of the sort. It enraged him. It intrigued him. And then the very fact that it had intrigued him enraged him even more. She often had that effect on him. She brought out a multitude of irreconcilable thoughts and sensations, by pushing and prodding, digging, always digging. 

“I am what I am!” he had shouted at her, in a fit of temper and frustration one day, back on Dragonstone, long before they were separated by miles and miles of land and snow. 

“And what is that, my king? What _are_ you, as opposed to _who_ are you?”

“Who are _you_ , my lady, to insist that I reveal myself to _your_ satisfaction, while you conceal everything about yourself? Everything that matters.” He leaned closer towards her, adding, in a low whisper, “What right do you have to demand something from me that you have no intention of ever reciprocating? What right do you have to unsettle my peace while you remain peacefully and complacently settled yourself? Where is the justice in that, pray tell?”

His shouting had not touched her composure in the slightest. The words he whispered, however, seemed to have a markedly different effect. She frowned. “If you think me at peace –” she began, before thinking better of it. Her words trailed off into a long silence, a silence he refused to break purely out of pique. He glared at her. She avoided his gaze.

When she finally spoke again, it was in a completely different tone of voice. She never demanded, she lightly protested. She coaxed and cajoled, she said, coaxing and cajoling. That method had never worked with him. She knew that well enough by then. Why was she employing it at that particular moment?

Because he had flustered her, he saw. Because he had unsettled her peace, at least for a moment, like she had unsettled his for even longer. He had broken through her defenses in some indefinable way. He felt exultant. He felt triumphant. He felt … like the worst kind of cad, as if he had borrowed a page from his older brother’s unread book to win a battle against her. A battle of wits. A battle of sentiments, sentiments that neither of them would ever put into words. 

His triumph, such as it was, was short-lived. She regained her composure and the upper hand swiftly enough. “It is not to _me_ that you must reveal yourself,” she proclaimed, smiling her enigmatic smile that he wished to erase forever and paint for posterity at the same time. 

She made the process of reclaiming herself appear entirely effortless, gliding smoothly over a flat and even surface, never wobbling for more than a few solitary moments. He envied her, while also wondering how much it had cost her, and how greatly it had pained her. She would never tell. She would endeavor to keep her secrets to the very end. He would have to observe, as closely as _she_ was observing _him_.

_Come to me. Find me. Save me._

He was _not_ lost, he protested, to a nameless accuser. He was _not_ crying out for help, he insisted, to the absent figure he was reaching out for in the nightfire. He was merely holding on to her faith, her faith in him that was stronger than his faith in himself. 

Even so, her faith in him could not be disentangled from her faith that he was Azor Ahai come again, that he was the Warrior of Light and the Son of Fire, that he was destined to save the world from the long night that would never end. If she lost faith in that, then she would lose her faith in him as well. There was no denying that. There was no doubting that. He had known it all along, had thrown his lot with her knowing it all along, had chosen the path that he – yes, consciously chose – knowing it all along. 

And yet, unaccountably, she had resisted the challenge to her faith in him. She had seen signs and portents in her nightfire that greatly troubled her, he gathered. She had seen doubts, and refused to doubt. She had seen denials, and refused to deny the man who had unsettled her peace. 

They always spoke of her leading him to his ruin, of her riding him like a horse to his destruction. But perhaps _he_ might be the one doing that, or worse, to her. 

_We have come this far together, but no further. Keep away, my lady. Let the miles and miles of land and snow remain between us._

The starved, hungry, angry young man that he had been rose in revolt, roaring with fury, desperate to hold on, desperate to hold on to her for dear life.

_No! You are mine. Mine and mine alone._

_I belong to my god._

_Come to me. Find me. Save me._

But who, he wondered, would save her from him, and from her god?


End file.
